Tennis: Artem Sitak makes brilliant start in Budapest

Artem Sitak. Photo / Nick Reed

Artem Sitak has made a brilliant start to his latest ATP tournament in Budapest.

The Kiwi doubles specialist and his Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof have beaten the top seeds to reach the quarter finals.

Sitak and Koolhof have overcome Croatian Nikola Mektic and Austrian Alexander Peya 7-5, 6-7 (4), 10-6 in an hour and 44 minutes.

Sitak says it was a high quality match against a team who had just won in Marrakesh so were feeling confident.

"We knew we could win and served and returned well. We kind of stole the first set at 6-5 when we broke Peya's serve after he had been up 40-15."

Sitak and Koolhof fought back from a break down in the second set before losing it in a tie breaker but came out strong in the deciding match tie break.

"Anything can happen in the super breaker but we were more aggressive and it felt like we wanted it more and in the end Wesley hit an unbelievable cross court winner to clinch the match." Sitak said.

Sitak and Koolhof will take on Poland's Marcin Matkowski and Sitak's former partner American Nicholas Monroe for a place in the semis tonight (9pm NZT).

Meanwhile New Zealand's top ranked singles player Rubin Statham's run has come to an end at the US $80,000 ATP Challenger tournament in Leon in Mexico.

Statham has lost 3-6,7-6 (5) 6-2 to Ecuador's Roberto Quiroz in the second round, his fifth match of the tournament after winning through three rounds of qualifying and his first round match.

Meanwhile Kiwi Erin Routliffe and her Chilean partner Alexa Guarachi Mathison have lost a marathon encounter in the ITF $80,000 tournament in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The second seeds have been beaten 6-2, 1-6 20-18 by American's Ingrid Neel, and Maria Sanchez.